The Global South at the London Film Festival
Photo: No Bears (Khers Nist), directed by Jafar Panahi
Films from or about Africa, Asia and Latin America at the London Film Festival, 5-16 October, include:
* Xalé, Moussa Sene Absa’s powerful film details the fallout of a devastating incident, sensitively conveying the pain and guilt that can fester within us, and is a stark portrait of the hardships many women face in Senegal
* No Bears, despite being banned from making films, Jafar Panahi plays himself, a filmmaker trying to direct a cast and crew in Turkey, who is forced to remain in an Iranian village close to the border. As his actors perform their own story of attempted escape to Europe, Panahi finds himself coming up against suspicion and local traditions
* Blue Island, engaging and committed hybrid documentary that not only conveys the layered history of Hong Kong but is a riveting work of political activism
* Bobi Wine: Ghetto President, passionate and revealing documentary about the Ugandan musician, actor, activist and presidential hopeful is also a portrait of a country edging towards a significant turning point
* Super Eagles ‘96, Yemi Bamiro’s engrossing history of the Nigerian national football team and its importance for the country’s political and cultural landscape
* Declaration (Ariyippu), when a compromising video is circulated, a married couple working dead-end factory jobs in India face a scandal that threatens to engulf their hopes of employment abroad
* Hidden Letters, two Chinese women are linked by their knowledge of an ancient secret language in an insightful documentary exploring resilience and sisterhood
* Next Sohee (Da-eum-so-hee), July Jung’s sharp, earnest and poignant film asks important questions about the nature of workplace exploitation (in this instance in Korea) and who should be held responsible when tragedy occurs
* Stonewalling, final part of Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka’s trilogy is a delicate and perceptive exploration of the hardship of a young woman’s life in contemporary China
* The Cloud Messenger (Meghdoot), a 16-year-old boy feels a powerful attraction towards his classmate, soon realising that much larger forces are at play, in this captivating reimagining of an ancient Indian myth
* Love Life, writer-director Kôji Fukada delivers a beguiling, beautifully paced portrait of a Korean-Japanese family navigating the aftermath of a tragedy, with honesty and a sense of hope
* Malintzin 17, a father and daughter in Mexico City create a thoroughly absorbing micro-drama centring on a mysterious bird, reminding us of the power of observation to fire the imagination
* Tori and Lokita, the Dardenne brothers’ Cannes prize-winner – about the plight of two teenage African migrants struggling to survive in Belgium – is characteristically gripping, sobering and deeply moving
* Pacifiction (Tourment sur les îles), Albert Serra’s hypnotic, dark film centres on a government official in Tahiti – a superb Benoît Magimel – who embodies the greed, hypocrisy and paranoia of colonial power
* Subtraction, actor-writer-director Mani Haghighi’s bizarre and highly original film plays with genre conventions and dabbles in magic realism, all amplified by captivating central performances
* Chee$e, Damian Marcano’s vibrant, rollicking, rags-to-riches tale follows the antics of a young Trinidadian cheesemaker-turned-drug dealer
* Kanaval: A People’s History of Haiti in Six Chapters, Haitian history is presented through an explosion of colour, dance and music, as the country prepares for its legendary carnival.
* Fast & Feel Love, Kao’s mission to become sport-stacking world champion is hindered by a ten-year-old rival and his own immaturity in this madcap sports underdog spoof
* The Middle Ages (La edad media), droll, metaphysical meta-comedy, about a well-to-do, dysfunctional Argentinian family trying to maintain their creativity and sanity while living under the constraints of lockdown
* Ashkal, the investigation into a series of unexplained deaths in Tunisia hints to the supernatural, in this thrillingly unconventional police procedural
* Boy From Heaven, a fisherman’s son is offered a place at a prestigious Islamic school in Cairo and finds himself drawn into a religious and political power struggle
* Faraaz, based on the real-life terrorist attack that ravaged a Dhaka cafe, Faraaz is a tense hostage drama that unspools over one claustrophobic night
* Señorita 89, the dark underside of international beauty pageants powers this taut thriller set in Mexico
* The African Desperate, highly personal yet humorously insightful debut feature shares the reality of being a Black woman in the predominantly white contemporary art world
* Self Portrait as a Coffee Pot, confined to his studio during lockdown, South African artist William Kentridge channels his creative energies into a series of short films that throw light on his artistic process
* Holy Spider, Ali Abassi’s sophomore feature is a terrifying retelling of the case of the Spider Killer, a serial killer hunting down sex workers in Iran
* My Imaginary Country (Mi país imaginario), women have been a driving force in the recent Chilean Revolution, as Nostalgia for the Light director Patricio Guzmán highlights in this galvanising documentary
* Nanny, mesmerising and captivating debut feature from Nikyatu Jusu about a Senegalese nanny, working undocumented in New York for a wealthy white family - a complex and tense portrait of labour, privilege and motherhood
* The Swimmers,Sally El Hosaini‘s moving true story of a Syrian teenager who dreams of swimming in the Olympics
* BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (BARDO, falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades), Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s follow-up to The Revenant sees him return to Mexico with this ambitious and visually inventive reflection on the ethics and possibilities of filmmaking
* Decision to Leave (Heojil Kyolshim), Hitchcockian noir thriller from Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden), in which a Korean detective gets a little too close to the murder he’s trying to solve
* Till, Chinonye Chukwu returns with a film about Mamie Till’s landmark fight for justice following the lynching of her son Emmett in 1955
* 1976, unnervingly brilliant portrait of the ways in which the Pinochet dictatorship realised its brute force and pervasive influence
* Know Your Place, striking debut feature from Zia Mohajerjasbi in which an Eritrean American teen embarks on an odyssey through a rapidly gentrifying Seattle
* Robe of Gems (Manto de Gemas), a loosely linked set of characters intersect in a rural community beset by cartel crime in Natalia López Gallardo’s disarming debut feature
* Our Lady of the Chinese Shop, when a Chinese merchant brings to a neighbourhood of Luanda a peculiar holy plastic figure of Our Lady, a mourning mother will seek peace, a committed barber starts a new cult and a stray kid will look for revenge for his lost friend
* Aisha (British), while caught for years in Ireland’s immigration system Aisha Osagie develops a close friendship with former prisoner Conor Healy. This friendship soon looks to be short-lived as Aisha’s future in Ireland comes under threat
* Shabu, meet the 14-year-old Dutch-Surinamese wannabe rapper who you’re sure to never forget, in Shamira Raphaëla’s hilarious and heartwarming documentary
+ BFI London Film Festival, cinemas around the UK, 5-16 October; 14-23 October on BFI Player. Info: https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp